On Monday morning, everyone in my English class looked as though they were on death row, and being subjected to twenty-four straight hours of Peking Opera to boot. This was not a good look. And for good reason(s). First, we were all at school at the ungodly hour of seven. Today was also the day we were going to have to give our unit presentations, which, as Mrs. Reed so kindly kept reminding us, was worth thirty percent of our semester grades.
In other words, anyone who screwed up now could say bye-bye to the college of their dreams…and say hello to fifty long, painfully under-paid years of working in the fast food industry.
Even Patty and Margaret looked slightly downcast. By that I mean their rapid-fire gossip exchange had slowed down by a small fraction. I’m talking microscopic here. When I sat down next to them, they ceased their chatter at once and stared at me like I had just popped out of thin air. The staring went on for a while.
“Hi,” I said when I thought that had gone on for too long. Because I was in a relatively testy mood, I added sardonically, “Yeah, it’s me. I know. Crazy that I’m here, before you, in the flesh. Please, no flash photography.”
Margaret rolled her eyes. “Nancy, you sure like your little jokes, huh?”
“I bet there’s something she likes better,” Patty sing-songed. The two of them laughed. Without reason.
“Am I missing something here, or are you two just confused as to what types of situations are and aren’t supposed to prompt humor?” I said, trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt.
Patty smiled knowingly. “Actually, I do know the difference. And there’s one more thing that I want to make sure of,” she giggled, elbowing Margaret with a look in her eye that I could not like (to be fair, I honestly couldn’t recall ever liking any of their sneaky exchange looks). “Is it true that you and Alexander are an item now?”
I nearly clattered out of my chair. “What? Where did you hear that from?”
“Charlie,” Patty said immediately. Damn Charlie and his big mouth.
“Who heard it from Dana,” Margaret added. I never liked that Dana, either.
“Who heard it from Lauren, who heard it from Mitchell, who heard it from Clara—”
“—and don’t forget about the twins.”
Dang. Apparently, there was a whole underground ring of math geek gossipers running rampant in our school. Harriett Tubman had nothing on Jefferson High School.
“Right. So you can’t keep secrets about Alexander from us forever. We have, like, evidence,” Patty said almost snarkily.
“And you know what I have? A migraine,” I said loudly. “I’m putting finishing touches on my project. Can we talk about this later?” Leaving both girls gaping at me with their mouths hung slightly open and stupid looks on their faces, I stuffed my earphones into my ears and went over my presentation notes.
Ten minutes later, Mrs. Reed arrived, and class started. She was awfully excited about the prospect of torturing us all through these presentations. Or maybe she was just excited in general. I noticed she was wearing bright red lipstick, too-dark blush, and some very amateur-looking eye shadow, evidently an attempt to seduce any eligible male clowns.
Whatever miracle this was, Mrs. Reed was in such a good mood that she let us pick the order we would present in. By the time it was my turn, I was ready. I hadn’t changed topics. I was still dead set on explaining The Mathematics of Love, despite Reed’s warnings. Stubbornness was my specialty.
When I announced my topic, she gave me a funny look. Or maybe that was just the whacky makeup.
In any case, I took a leap of faith, just like I’d done with Harvard, and went for it.
*****
“…And I just left them alone for a few weeks, and bam! Before you know it, Betts is putting the moves on her,” Louisa cackled at my house later that afternoon. I’d invited Amelia and Louisa over to my house for the first time, and was dealt a severe reminder of why I hadn’t invited them over before (apart from the whole emo-ish “I don’t need friends” phase). These two girls plus delicious Asian snacks equaled one very empty pantry for Nancy’s family. Although to be fair, Kevin had already gotten us accustomed to that.
Amelia nearly choked on her rice cracker, she was laughing so hard at Louisa’s story about how her Love and Relationships unit presentation was basically a bust. “So, what? No thanks to you, our English and Calculus teachers are officially together?”
Louisa sniffed, took a big bite out of a prune candy before I could warn her, and then spit it out almost immediately. “I like to think that by not being there, I helped them get together. By the way, there’s poison in your food supply,” Louisa informed me, holding up an empty prune candy wrapper.
“Of course. How else do you think we get rid of annoying, over-eating house guests?”
“Oh, Nancy. You know you love me.”
“I don’t, but maybe I would if you handed over that last rice cracker.”
Louisa smiled and popped it into her mouth. “Naugh gawhna haffen.”
Amelia swatted her. “Chew with your mouth closed, you animal! Sometimes I question myself for hanging out with you people.”
While Louisa and Amelia fought over the last few snacks on the counter, I turned my attention toward the pile of mail sitting on the dining table. I knew I had at least another month to go before I heard back from any of the other colleges I’d applied to, but the nerd in me made me check the mail for any college letters anyway.
I went through the whole pile. Just as I was ready to give up and write off the whole stack as a bunch of bills and lawn-mowing ads, one fat envelope toward the bottom caught my eye.
A college letter?
I picked it up and examined it carefully. Nope. Not a college letter. Definitely not a college letter. It was addressed to the Pang family from someone completely unexpected: Vanessa.
Vanessa? The last I’d heard of her had to be at least two or three months ago—whenever Kevin was still in charge of that children’s choir. Curious to see what she could possibly be writing to us about (especially considering that the whole frickin’ world wide web was available to her as a source of contact), I tore open the envelope.
Out fell four concert tickets and a letter. As realization slowly downed on me, I picked up the tickets and examined them. In big, bright red letters was the word “Kevncrew” spanning the length of the ticket.
I vaguely recalled this as the name of the band Kevin had been trying to get me to see a while back. But why would Vanessa be mailing the tickets now? Thinking the letter would help clear up the randomness of this situation, I unfolded it and scanned the contents.
Dear the Pang family,
Hello. I hope you are all doing well. Regarding your son Kevin’s absence, I know you must be worried. Please don’t blame him—it was partially my idea to have him leave without saying anything as well. I’m truly sorry that we had to put you through that ordeal, but there was simply no other way to work around it.
You will understand why things had to be this way if you come to this concert in Indianapolis this Saturday. It's our concert. Kevin is our lead singer. The tickets are included in this envelope. I really hope you can all make it. Once again, apologies for your son’s long absence. He will be heading back home after this Saturday. I hope you all have a wonderful week.
Best wishes,
Vanessa Fox
At least she wished us a wonderful week. That was the argument I was going to have to practice in the inevitable event that my parents set out on a medieval-style witch hunt after Vanessa’s blood.
“Hey, whatcha got there?” Louisa asked, her head suddenly leaning over my shoulder so she could get a closer look.
“A…very benign kidnapping notice and pseudo-apology?”
She stared at me blankly. “Um, what?”
Louisa and Amelia, probably sensing that I wasn’t going to be much fun now that I was in a state of mass confusion, left my house soon after. I sat there at the dining table for a while, trying to understand what was going on and sort out my thoughts.
I knew that:
1). Kevin was coming back. The thought made me a lot happier than I would have preferred it to.
2). Vanessa Fox had somehow become our friendly neighborhood…kidnapper. Who was really bad at keeping her identity under wraps.
3). Our three-person family had been given four concert tickets. Assuming I could only choose to bring either Louisa or Amelia along, the one who got left behind would spend all weekend plotting my death upon return.
4). Indianapolis…Junior Mathematics Tournament…a.k.a. bad memories. Naturally, I would have to go there again.
5). I made two lists within two days. This needed to stop.
That was how my parents found me an hour later: hunched over at the kitchen table making lists. I think I may have also been muttering to myself. No wonder they don’t want to talk to me these days.
Setting aside the matter of Harvard rejection that still hung in the air, I warily showed my parents the letter and the tickets and got them up to speed. I expected immediate backlash. Instead, Dad just closed his eyes, set the letter down, turned around, and walked into his office. He shut the door and didn’t come out.
“Um…what’s he doing in there?” I asked Mom nervously. At least she had stayed put, though the look on her face told me she wasn’t taking the news well, either.
“Your father? Probably fingering things,” she said absently, scrolling through the letter with her brow furrowed.
I did a double take. “Probably what?”
“Fingering things. Fingering things out.”
“Geez, Mom, do you mean ‘figuring’?”
Mom looked at me oddly. “Of course. Isn’t that what I say?”
I decided not to respond, mostly because I was pretty certain that conversation had just scarred me for life. Mom put the letter down after she finished reading it. Next she examined the tickets carefully, as though hoping to find some trace of Kevin’s DNA on it.
“Mom?” I said carefully after a while had passed.
“Yes?”
“You’re not really throwing chairs, or locking yourself in your office and fingering—figuring!—things out, or…reacting...to the letter...at all.”
She shrugged and ruffled my hair, switching to speaking in Mandarin again, so I knew she wasn’t mad. “Your brother made his choice to be a musician, and he is old enough to decide for himself at this point. What can I do but support him?”
I looked at Mom with amazement. “Mom, do you hear yourself right now?”
“Nancy, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but that is a stupid question.”
“You…you’ve always been after Kevin about choosing a stable career rather than chasing after his passions,” I said. “What…how…why? What’s changed?”
Mom didn’t say anything for a long while. She just stared through the kitchen window, out at the old, rickety swing set Kevin and I used to love so much when we were kids. Looking at her now, it suddenly occurred to me that there were grey hairs slowly snaking their way into my mom’s otherwise jet black hair.
“I am tired,” she said at last. “That’s part of it. I also realize now that even though I want Kevin to have a stable life, I want him to be happy as well. If I had to pick one, I would rather he be happy no matter how he chooses to live. I think he would prefer that, too. I think that is what he has been trying to tell me for the past ten years.” Mom smiled, the dimples crinkling up the corners of her eyes. A tear escaped the corner of her eye. “It’s amazing how much children can teach their parents.”
For a long moment, I hugged Mom and let that action communicate the grateful words that I couldn’t say with my throat suddenly choked up. I wondered how many people waited a lifetime to hear those words from their parents, and they never came. I wondered how many people led lives they didn’t even like all that much, because no one had ever given them the courage to go after their dreams. If Kevin were here, he would’ve been over the moon about what was going on in our house now. I made a mental note to make Mom repeat that spiel whenever he decided to come back home.
When Dad finally came out of his office nearly half an hour later, he stood in front of us and just stared at nothing for a while, like he was lost in thought. I fully expected him to start yelling about Kevin’s stupidity or Vanessa’s craziness or something, but he never did. Dad just stood there and looked a little sad.
Something must have been off about the water supply. My parents were behaving very oddly.
Finally, in a croaky voice, he said, “Clear your schedules for the weekend.” Then he turned around and went upstairs.
I guess Dad was tired of being at odds with his only son, too. Even if he wasn’t saying anything about it, I could tell the tough Chinese father exterior was starting to crumble, just a little. With any luck, it looked like the Pang family was finally going to be whole again.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
Later that evening, Dad ducked his head out of his office to gruffly inform me that I could bring one friend along for the trip. For some reason, I immediately thought of Alexander. I think it goes without saying that this was a strictly No Boys Allowed kind of thing (as with everything else I did), though.
Or so I thought. Mom was all for the idea. She thought Alexander could “tutor” me in math or something, which was a funny thought. If he ever tried to, I would knock his teeth clean across the Pacific. Darn show-off.
Alexander, of course, was even more all for the idea of going to the concert. I could tell even over Facebook Messenger.
Alexander: So…you promise your dad won’t be hiding a shotgun in his shirt or anything? I know what Chinese dads are like.
Nancy: Of course not!
Nancy: Just a Swiss Army Knife and a club. Maybe a rabid squirrel or three.
Alexander: Ok, phew. That really takes a load off my chest.
Nancy: And to clear things up, just because I asked you to go on this trip doesn’t mean anything about how I…you know…
Alexander: ?
Nancy: YOU KNOW -_-
Alexander: I really don’t.
Nancy: Don’t play coy with me, Alexander. I know that big brain of yours has already figured out what I was going to say.
Alexander: You overestimate me, then.
Alexander: I have managed to mess up and fix a Rubik’s cube since this conversation started, though.
Nancy: Wow, have you tried that as a pick-up line on girls yet? I’m sure it will woo them.
Alexander: I just did.
Nancy: Ok, getting off topic.
Alexander: Did I just get shut down?
Nancy: I was trying to say that me asking you on this trip doesn’t mean I necessarily like you…or dislike you…so don’t get any funny ideas.
Alexander: Darn.
Alexander: But we ARE living together, right? So I shouldn’t bring my Spongebob pajamas?
Nancy: …
Nancy Pang is now offline.
When I went to bed that night, I felt happier than I had in ages. Finally, it seemed like some things were going right.
*****
A/N - Sorry it took me 2 weeks to get this chapter out! WIth midterms and all, I didn't have much time to write until this past weekend. Not much happened in this chapter, but look forward to the next few because big things are going to happen :D Please vote/comment! Thanks so much for sticking with me and this book! You guys make my day.
P.S. I'm trying to host a Wattpad Meetup in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. It's on November 22nd. If any of you can make it, let me know! Otherwise, I may have to cancel because it would really suck if I just sat in the local Starbucks and no one ever came. Lol.